


Thirty-Seven Scars

by LenoreFrost



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Protective Severus Snape, Self-Harm, Smut, Young Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-01-24 09:55:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18569014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LenoreFrost/pseuds/LenoreFrost
Summary: It's Severus Snape's sixth year at Hogwarts and, without Lily by his side last summer, his life has gotten even darker.  Struggling to deal with his increasingly brutal home life and the pressures of moving towards becoming a Death Eater, he has taken to cutting.  When he recognizes similar scars on one of his classmates, Raine Larkshire, the thought of someone else being in as much pain as him is too upsetting to ignore.  He decides to reach out to Raine and get her to open up to him...even if that requires him putting himself in a new and nerve-wracking situation.





	1. Raine Larkshire

            Severus shuffled his way into Transfiguration, his nose buried deep in a book to block out everything around him.  He dropped into a seat near the back where McGonagall still didn’t miss him, but where her gaze was less scorching.  Without lowering his book, he managed to produce his Transfiguration text and his notes, quill, and ink from his bag.  Slytherins sat behind him, a Ravenclaw next to him and in front of him.  It was as McGonagall entered the classroom that he lowered his book and marked his page.

            “Today we will be continuing with human transfiguration, specifically the spell _crinis muto_.  Can anyone tell me what _crinis muto_ is used for?  Anyone?”

            “It changes the appearance of one’s hair, Professor.”

            “You know your Latin, Miss Brighton.  Yes, _crinis muto_ changes the appearance of one’s hair.”  McGonagall waved her wand and hand mirrors appeared on each desk.  “The spell is quite tricky, as is all N.E.W.T. level transfiguration, and inattention to detail may result in missing eyebrows, partially-colored hair, bald spots, and greying hair, so please pay attention.”

            As McGonagall was explaining the intricacies of the spell, a crumpled-up bit of parchment bounced off the student next to Severus and landed on his desk.  He heard the Slytherins behind him snickering and watched as the girl next to him glared back at them from under a sheet of raven-black hair.  Her gaze was ice-cold, but only managed to send the Slytherins into worse fits of snickers, so she turned forward once more. 

Severus hesitated, but uncrumpled the parchment out of curiosity to find a crude drawing of a dark-haired girl naked and bent over a desk with a spiky-haired boy fucking her that could only be Avery.  So she was one of his recent conquests, then.  He crumpled up the paper again, unexpectedly angry at the treatment the poor girl was getting, and felt eyes on him.  He looked to his left and found the girl glaring at him.  She had grey eyes that were sharpened like steel as they darted between him and the bit of parchment.  He shook his head just slightly, telling her wordlessly that she didn’t want to know, and shoved the bit of parchment into his bag to throw out after class.

            Before long, they were nudged along to try _crinis muto_ and Severus found himself trying to turn his hair a less inky shade of black, something that wouldn’t be noticeable if he got it wrong and that would be easy to change back.  He liked his hair just fine, even if the catcalls of the Gryffindors often referred to him as a ‘greasy git.’  He especially liked the dark color and the length and was unwilling to mess with it too much.

            “Hey.”

            He looked up in surprise to find the Ravenclaw girl next to him glaring at him again with her hand outstretched.  “Give me that parchment.”

            “You really don’t want to know,” he said.

            “If it’s like the others, I already know and I don’t want you or anyone else jacking off to it later,” she said harshly.  “Give it.”

            He sighed and produced the ball of parchment, handing it to her.  As he did, he noticed that the sleeve of her robes had creeped up just barely, revealing long, pale fingers, dark violet nail polish, and, just visible across her pale wrist, a narrow scar that he recognized too well.

            His eyes snapped to the girl’s, his stomach roiling, but she only glared at him harder and pointedly adjusted her sleeve to cover the scar, retracting her hand with the parchment and shoving it away in her own bag.

            Severus turned his attention back to his mirror, but took care to only pretend to be trying the spell out of, probably well-placed, fear that he would be too distracted and make a mistake.  He’d started cutting last summer, when the beatings and harsh words at home had gotten worse and he’d had no Lily to go to.  He usually cut further up his arm or on his ribs or legs out of fear that someone would see the wounds and be rude enough to bring it up, but he knew exactly what they looked like, would never forget exactly what they looked like.  The idea of anyone else suffering the way he did, getting lost in their own self-loathing and self-pity, made him sick, and he spent the rest of the class trying to decide what to do about it.

            When the bell rang, he packed his things hurriedly, but still had to run to catch up to the girl as she left the room, a book clutched in her arms.  “Hey!” he called after her.  “Hold up!”

            The girl stopped abruptly, causing the girls behind her to very nearly run her over and glare at her as she turned to face him, her eyes like blades.  “What do you want?”

            Now that the moment had come, whatever words of wit he’d come up with had evaporated.  “I just…I thought…”

            She raised an eyebrow at him and said fiercely, “You saw my scars and thought you’d ‘save me?’  Thanks, but no thanks.  I’m fine.”

            “I don’t mean any harm, I just…”

            “You probably don’t even know my name, what do you care?” she snapped.

            Severus didn’t know her name, but that meant little.  He made a point to know very few people at Hogwarts, preferring to bury himself in his books, which were less likely to betray him or tease him.  He sighed and mumbled, “I only meant that I know what it’s like and I’m sorry.”

            The girl sneered at him.  “You know what it’s like, do you?  Sure, okay.  Sell your pity somewhere else, would you?”

            That brought out a scowl in him and he looked around sharply to check for interested parties before rolling up his left sleeve to where he knew his scars started.  The girl stared openly at them, then her eyes snapped up to meet his once more.

            “Showing off your Dark Mark, Snivellus?” Potter catcalled as his entourage passed.

            “No amount of trying to impress is going to get you laid, even if the girl is easy,” Black said with a crooked grin.

            He tugged his sleeve back down and snarled at them, “Shut your damn mouths.”

            “Ooh,” Potter said, his hands out.  “Whatcha going to do, Snivellus?  Going to hex us?”

            “Maybe,” Severus said coldly.  “So, piss off.”

            The Marauders laughed and, thankfully, moved on, probably afraid that getting into a fight so close to McGonagall’s classroom was too big a risk.

            The girl hissed in annoyance at the other boys, then turned back to Severus, her eyes sharp again.  “So, what do you want?”

            “I just want your name and to know you’re going to be okay,” he said quietly.

            She rolled her eyes.  “Told you you didn’t even know my name, though it was your arsehole friend Avery who branded me ‘easy.’  It’s Raine Larkshire and I don’t need or want your help.”

            “Fine,” he said.  “But if you change your mind and want to talk to someone who gets it, I’ll listen.”

            Raine curled her lip up at what he realized too late sounded patronizing, turned on her heel, and continued on her way.

            He was being sincere, though, and was hurt that she didn’t buy it.  He did get it and he didn’t want her hurting.  Besides, he would’ve liked to have someone like him to talk about it with.

\--------------

            That night in the Slytherin common room, Severus found the courage to ask Avery what had happened with Raine.  Avery laughed and said, “Well, I fucked her, obviously.  I thought everyone knew.”

            “Did you date her or just fuck her?”

            Avery gave him a patient smile, then said, “Of course I didn’t date her.  And she didn’t seem to mind.”

            Severus frowned deeply at the thought.  He was no expert on girls, but from what he knew about them from Lily, it seemed that emotional attachments were pretty important to them.  They liked friends, dating, relationships.  Besides, he did know girls like Lucinda Talkalot who were carefree and kind of slutty, but that didn’t mesh with the tense, angry girl he’d met in Transfiguration.  “She didn’t mind just randomly fucking you in a broom cupboard?”

            “Not at all,” Avery said proudly.  Then, he thought about it a bit and added, “That girl has issues, though.  You know she’s a cutter?”  Avery curled his lip in distaste.  “I had to fight to keep my dinner down touching the scars on those legs as I fucked her.  It’s sick.”

            Severus stared at him in the same distaste the boy showed towards Raine.  A thought flitted through his mind of kissing the scars on her thighs, making her feel everything she was missing that caused her to give herself those scars.  “So why did you fuck her?  You could’ve just let her be.”

            “She begged for it, mate,” Avery said with a smirk.  “The girl’s a whore.  She’d do you too if you asked.  Go find a broom cupboard and find out.”

            “What makes you say that?”

            Avery’s smirk turned crooked and he said, too loudly, “Because I know she’s been with half a dozen guys and when she was with me, she didn’t want me looking at her and wouldn’t look at me, just wanted to be fucked.  I did her from behind with her pressed against a wall.”

            Severus raised an eyebrow and shook his head, staring into the fire as Avery became distracted by another conversation.  A girl who wanted to be fucked, but not by anyone she could see or have emotional attachments with.  It didn’t make any sense and, if he was understanding it reasonably accurately, it was a highly self-destructive behavior, worse than anything he’d done and he’d done some stupid things.  It disturbed him and made him want to do something about it.

            He went to bed that night with Raine still on his mind, replacing his usual guilt over the loss of Lily or self-pity over his home life with worry for someone he hardly knew.  He ran the pad of his thumb over his own scars slowly, finding every one in the dark.  He thought about grabbing his dagger from where it hid between the pages of one of his mom’s old spellbooks and making some new scars, but eventually decided against it.  He was too busy thinking about Raine and wondering if that was what she was doing right then.

            That thought made his blood run cold and he vowed to do something tomorrow to make Raine listen to him.

\--------------------

            The next morning, he stood in the entrance hall for a few minutes trying to talk himself through what he was about to do, then entered the Great Hall, sought out Raine, and sat down across from her at the Ravenclaw table.  She shot daggers at him that he ignored as he grabbed a piece of toast and began scraping jam over it.  “What are you doing?” she said.

            “Eating breakfast.  You?”

            “Hating you.  Why are you here?”

            He shrugged off the biting words.  He didn’t believe she hated him and if she was going to say something mean, there were far crueler things she could have picked.  “You were sitting alone.  I’m always sitting alone.  It seems to me we could be sitting alone together.”

            Raine raised an eyebrow at him and he met her gaze passively.  “Not really, seeing as that completely ignores the definition of ‘alone.’”

            Severus shrugged again and took a bite of his toast, then, toast still in hand, said, “Maybe I’m hoping to get laid.”

            Raine snorted.  “You must have talked to Avery.  What did he say about me?”

            He tipped his head and set down the toast.  “He said you were a whore, that he didn’t bother to date you and you didn’t want him to, he just fucked you in a broom cupboard.”

            Raine’s eyes dropped to her hands.  She was picking at her nail polish where it had just barely begun to flake off.  “I don’t like to think of myself as a whore, but the rest is accurate.  I don’t think anyone wants to date that pig.”

            The corner of his mouth quirked up at her assessment of Avery.  “You’re probably right.  Why’d you fuck him if he’s a pig, though?”

            She shrugged.  “Why not?”

            “Because he’s fucked half the female students here, the less decent half.  You could do better.”

            “Maybe I don’t want to do better,” she said, her voice going dark.

            “What does that mean?”

            “Guys like slutty girls.  Maybe I like slutty guys.  Less headaches.”

            “I don’t think so.”

            Raine’s eyes flashed to his like blades.  “What do you want me to say?  Maybe I like sex more than I like myself.  Maybe I don’t care who uses me as long as they have the decency to get me off.”

            “You don’t mean that,” he said, his stomach rolling at the words and their implications.  How could someone live with that much self-loathing inside them?  Maybe that was the answer, though.  If she had enough self-loathing to cut, maybe sex was another outlet for her, maybe even one of several outlets.  He didn’t like the idea of that, not at all. 

            “You don’t know me,” she snapped.  “You don’t know what I mean.  Piss off.”

            He stared at her for a long time, then his eyes went unconsciously to her wrists.  He could see two scars in a neat row on her right wrist and it was impossible to guess how many more there were, how many more she’d mark her body with tonight in Ravenclaw Tower.  By the time he looked her in the eyes again, she was openly glaring at him.  He’d been starting to practice occlumency, though, and used it now to clear his mind and his expression and to say coldly, “Fine.  You say you don’t care who uses you as long as they get you off.  I’ll get you off.”

            She stared him down for almost a minute before saying, “Really?  That’s your play?”

            “Yep.  You can admit you do care enough that you don’t want to be used, or you can let me use you.”

            Raine held up her hands and looked around them with wide eyes.  “This is not typical breakfast conversation.”

            “I assure you, this is a perfectly typical conversation at the Slytherin table.”

            She scowled deeply, but after a moment’s thought, nodded.  “Fine.  Eight o’clock tonight in the broom cupboard in the fourth floor corridor on the left side.”

            His heart began to race, but he suppressed it as best as he could.  “Fine.”

\-------------------------

            Severus couldn’t focus all day.  All he could think about was Raine and what the hell he was going to do at eight o’clock.  Herbology was especially brutal because she was in that class with him, not that he’d noticed before.  Now he couldn’t stop sneaking glances at her, which was enough to make Avery snicker beside him and Raine glare at Avery for snickering.  Fortunately, she had yet to figure out why Avery was laughing.

            She wasn’t supposed to say ‘yes’….

            He ate little for lunch and less for dinner, then sat in the library worrying until nearly eight.  At last, the time had come and he could put it off no more.  He left the library and made for the fourth floor.

            On the fourth floor, he entered the left-hand corridor and found Raine pacing the gloomy hallway.  When she saw him, she froze and watched him approach.  He used his occlumency to clear his head and control his heart and lungs and presented an indifferent face to her.  “Last chance,” he said, though it felt more like his last chance.

            Raine folded her arms and gave him the same indifferent look, as if to return the offer.  After a minute of playing chicken, Severus reached out with a hand that thankfully didn’t shake and opened the broom cupboard, holding the door for Raine.  She blinked hard, apparently having hoped he would change his mind, but entered the cupboard.  He followed her and bolted the door with a flick of his wand.

            The broom cupboard was dark and crowded, but Raine was already shimmying out of her knickers under her skirt and kicking them off her ankles.  “Okay, Romeo,” she said dryly, shucking off her robes.  “Whenever you’re ready.”

            She was trying to intimidate him and it was working, but he swallowed his nerves and advanced on her.  He kissed her long and slow, but she remained still and unmoved.  He refused to give in, caressing her cheek and dragging his fingers through her long, black hair, pulling it over her shoulder so his hand followed it down her shirt and over her breast.  He laid one hand on her waist to pull her to him, pressing her hips to his and her breast into his hand.  She was kissing him back now, but it felt forced and mechanical, like she was following a script.  He teased her lips with his tongue, but when she parted them, he kissed the corner of her mouth, then back along her jaw to her throat.  The tiniest sigh escaped her lips and he traced an arc between her breasts with his thumb, fingering under her tie and between the buttons of her shirt.  Her hands went to his shoulders, more for support than anything else, it seemed, but he was willing to accept small victories.  He was going to get her off, he was maybe going to fuck her, but before either of those things happened, he wanted to make her _feel_ something.

            His mouth founds hers again and this time she opened up to him right away.  His tongue teased at the tip of hers and she let them dance together, but she still wasn’t giving in.  But that was fine, he had another idea.  He moved his hands to her chest, where he quickly undid her tie and the buttons of her shirt, sliding his hands in across soft skin.  He pressed her back against the wall of the cupboard and she let him, gasping just barely when he sucked on her lower lip and slipped his hands inside her bra at the same time.  Her breasts were small but so soft and warm.  He teased at her nipples with his fingertips until they hardened under his touch and Raine’s hands tightened on his shoulders.  “Alright,” she hissed between kisses.  “Are you going to fuck me or not?”

            “Shh…” he whispered before kissing her again.  “I remember the word ‘use’ and right now, this is how I’m using you.  Don’t worry, I’ll still get you off.”

            “Really?  You’re awful confident.”

            He pinched one nipple and gently rolled it in his fingertips and her body stiffened.  He might have very limited experience with women, but he had a great imagination and loved a challenge.  If she thought he couldn’t get her off without fucking her, fine.  He’d get her off without fucking her.  But first, she was going to feel something.

            He shoved off her shirt and tie, leaving her there in her bra and skirt, then kissed down her throat and between her breasts.  Bringing his head down brought her arms down with him and he looped his hand around one narrow wrist.  Raine immediately stiffened and tried to jerk her hand away, but he held firm.  “Don’t touch me there,” she said sharply.

            Severus stilled and very slowly turned his head and kissed her scars one at a time up her arm.  By the time he reached the crease in her elbow where they stopped…there were eleven…she was shaking. 

“I bet the other guys didn’t like these,” he said softly.  “You’re not your skin, though.  You deserve better than how they treat you.” 

All her muscles were quivering now and his free hand went to her thigh, slipping under her skirt and easily finding the start of the scars on her legs about halfway up her thigh.  There were so many.  He brushed his thumb over them slowly, feeling every one in the marrow of his bones, the way he felt his own, each one a dark memory.  Raine shuddered and he kissed her wrist once more, then dropped to his knees in front of her.  “Snape,” she whispered.  “Don’t.”

“It’s Severus,” he said.  Then, he ducked his head under her skirt and laid a butterfly-soft kiss on her lower thigh, finding that first scar with his mouth.  These scars were shorter than the ones on her wrist, but there were more of them.  Raine’s hands tangled in his hair, trying to wrench him away, but he held onto her waist and continued laying kisses further and further up her leg.  He could smell her, sweet and musky, and knew that whatever cruel things her head was telling her, her body wanted this.  On impulse, he circled her clit with his tongue and her hands suddenly tightened in his hair, pressing him down into her now.  “Oh fuck,” she whimpered. 

All the blood rushed from his head elsewhere in his body and he was working her with his mouth, kissing, teasing, and sucking as she tugged on his hair.  When he slid his tongue inside her, tasting her, she cried out and he flicked his wand at the door, casting a silencing charm.  She stiffened and he whispered against her inner thigh, “Scream all you want.”

He dipped his tongue inside her again and she cried out as she had before, pressing down on his head so he reached in deeper.  He flicked his tongue up where he knew her G-spot must be and her knees wobbled, very nearly going out from under her.  He ducked his arm under one of her legs, kissed up her thigh along her scars, then looped her leg over his shoulder, opening her up to him as he supported her.  “Oh shit…” she moaned.  “Severus….”

His blood was pounding in his veins and the hardness at the front of his trousers was becoming painful.  God, he wanted her, wanted to kiss her and bury himself in her, and get lost in her.  But not yet.

Severus kissed the uppermost scar on her left thigh, then whispered against her skin, “How many?”

He could hear her swallow, then she forced herself to answer.  “Thirty-seven.”

 _Thirty-seven._   This poor, beautiful, broken woman.

He kissed her once more, then stood and kissed her on the mouth again as he shrugged off his robes, then began undoing the buttons of his shirt.  She was kissing him back for real this time, tilting her head to the right to give him better access as he slipped his tongue inside her mouth.  She shivered and one hand grabbed him by the hip.  Before they could go further, though, he peeled off his shirt and tie and took her hand, slowly laying her palm on the scars on his ribs.  Raine stilled instantly, then brushed her fingertips over the scars.  His were longer than hers, crueler, but there were less of them.  “How many?”

“Twenty-six.”

She nodded, then kissed him firmly, turning suddenly so it was his back against the wall and her hands on his chest.  She ran her hands over him as they kissed, feeling every scar, including the ones he hadn’t done himself.  When she slid her hands up his back, she froze, feeling the scars from his father’s belt.  “You didn’t do these,” she said softly.

He shook his head and choked out the answer.  “No.”

She kissed him harder now, losing herself in him as she dug her fingers into his lower back.  He slid his hands down her bare back to her arse, gripping one cheek with one hand and slipping the other under her skirt.  Raine shuddered and quickened the kiss as he traced her scars again with his fingertips.  Then, he slid one finger inside her and she gasped.  “Oh!”

Fuck, she felt good.  She was so warm and tight and so wet.  His mind went wild thinking of how easily he could push inside her, of how tight her grip on him would be, of how heavenly that would feel.  He groaned and pushed in deeper, pumping slowly as she shook in his arms.  “God…” she moaned.  “Severus, please…”

She leaned into him, straddling his left leg, and tightened her legs around him as she rode his hand.  He slid a second digit inside her and she gasped, her mouth parting and staying open in an ‘O’ as he kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, her ear.  She was close, he could feel it.  He curled his fingers inside her, rubbing her G-spot, and she cried out, her fingers lacing into his hair and tugging hard.  “Come for me, beautiful,” he whispered in her ear.

She did come, screaming and gasping, her whole body quivering in his arms.  Just feeling her come was almost enough to finish him.  He kissed her throat, her cheek, then her lips, nice and slow and lazy.  He withdrew his hands and cradled her in his arms, holding her upright and against him.  “And exactly…how was that you using me?” Raine whispered, her breath still coming hard and fast.

Severus kissed her soft and slow, then whispered his answer honestly against her lips.  “I wanted to feel wanted.”

He felt her grey eyes on him and he opened his own.  The cupboard was dark, but he could just see the glint of her lovely eyes.  “Would you like to date me?” Raine asked quietly.

His heart leapt in his chest.  “Yes.”

“Let’s do that.”

“Okay.”


	2. Dating Raine

            Severus kissed Raine goodnight and left her just in time to make it to bed before curfew.  He hurried into bed, shut the drapes, cast a silencing charm, and took himself in hand.  The walk back from that broom cupboard had been torture and he couldn’t stand it anymore.  He couldn’t stop thinking about her tongue in his mouth, her hands on his scars, her taste in his mouth, her muscles clenching around his fingers.

            He came hard, gasping and shuddering, thinking of her, thinking of the pleasure he’d given her and how badly he’d made her want him.

            The next morning, he was up early, showering and shaving, then dressing and hurrying down to breakfast.  For a moment he thought he had beat Raine there and would have to sit at the Slytherin table, but then he spotted her with her nose buried in a large book.  He couldn’t help grinning at the sight and sauntered down to her, ignoring Slytherin eyes on him.  He sat across from her the way he had the day before and Raine looked up from her book, surprised.  When the reading fog lifted from her eyes, a crooked smile stretched across her lovely lips.  “Good morning.”

            “Good morning,” he returned.  “How did you sleep?”

            The smile travelled into her grey eyes and she blushed.  “Very well, thank you.”

            He wanted to ask if she’d thought much of him, wanted that validation out loud, but he was willing to settle for that look on her face.  He smirked a little, then dished up some toast and eggs.

            “Is this going to become a regular thing?  Us sitting together, I mean?”

            Severus shrugged, keeping his eyes down in case she rejected the idea.  “Like I said yesterday, we’d might as well sit alone together.”

            “Well, you sometimes sit with Avery, Mulciber and that lot.”

            She sounded uncertain and he raised his gaze to find her picking at her nail polish again and doing a poor job of pretending not to care what he said.  He found it hard to believe she’d rather he sat with Avery of all people, who would probably spend the whole time trying to get him to compare notes on Raine.  So, he told her the truth.  “I’d much rather sit with you.”

            A soft smile lit her face and a bit of a blush flooded her cheeks.  He had a habit of taking mental snapshots when he saw things that made him genuinely happy so he could remember them later when things weren’t so great.  He took a snapshot now of that sweet look on her face.  It was so precious because it was so vulnerable and beautiful on a face that had been as hard as stone this time yesterday.

            “So, I’ve never actually dated anyone before,” she admitted quietly, surprising him.

            _But, according to Avery, you’ve shagged half a dozen guys._ The thought made him nauseous and he quickly suppressed it.  “Nor have I.”

            “So…what do we do?”

            “I think we just enjoy each other’s company and occasionally hide somewhere private for a snog.”

            Raine snorted and covered her mouth with a hand, only partially hiding her smile.  “It’s that simple, huh?”

            Severus shrugged, reminding himself that she was laughing with him, not at him as most people did.  “I think it is.  It should be, anyway.”

            Raine lowered her hand and nodded.  “Okay.  I can do that.”

            They talked quietly over breakfast, ignoring the many eyes on them and the whispers echoing around the hall.  When it was time for them to go to class, they met at the end of the Ravenclaw table and Raine tentatively slipped her hand into his.  The contact was eerie after going so long without anyone touching him who wasn’t trying to hurt him, but the warmth of her skin seeped into his own and he found himself squeezing her hand to keep it there as they walked from the Great Hall.  The whispers got louder.

            He left her at the staircases as he went down to Potions and she went up to Charms.  He’d scarcely gotten halfway down the staircase when someone called his name.

            “Severus!”

            He’d know that voice anywhere.  His heart skipped a beat and he spun to face Lily, who was running down the staircase and looking at him like he’d gone mad.  “What are you doing?” she hissed.

            He frowned deeply.  “What do you mean?”

            “What are you doing hanging around Raine Larkshire?”

            He raised an eyebrow at his ex-best friend, at the girl he’d loved since childhood who’d broken his heart six months ago.  “I’m dating her.  What do you care?”

            Lily’s eyes popped and she hurried to his side, but didn’t touch him.  A year ago, she would have grabbed him by the arm.  “What are you thinking?  She’s…well…”

            Something dark and protective crept into him and he glared at Lily as he said, “What is she?”

            Lily cringed, then said, “Sev, she shagged Sirius Black.”

            That stung, but he refused to let it show how much it hurt him that Raine had been with his enemy.  Faster than he could stop it, his brain raced ahead of him imagining Raine with Black, picturing him fucking her from behind with her face buried in a wall the way Avery had, hearing the sounds she made, seeing Black’s hands on her hips, on her scarred thighs.  What had he thought of the scars?  From what Severus knew of him, Black was pretty shallow and he would’ve expected him to react much the way Avery had.  He would have been disgusted, but not enough to turn down a shag.  He had experience, though.  She would have gotten what she wanted; Black would have gotten her off without making her feel a damn thing.  His guts tied themselves into knots just thinking about it and his hands began to shake.  Raine had deemed him, Severus, boyfriend material, but that didn’t mean she deemed him better than the other guys she’d been with, including Black, in all ways.  He didn’t have experience and she had to be able to tell the difference.  His knotted-up insides began to roll and heave and it was all he could do to keep his breakfast down as he said coldly, “I didn’t know that.  Poor girl.”

            “This is serious, Sev!”

            “Don’t call me that!” he snapped at Lily.  Between imagining Raine with Black and Lily’s judgment, he was ready to burst.  “I sat outside your common room for days begging you to let me apologize to you over something as little as a stupid name and you wouldn’t listen to me.  You threw our friendship away.  Now, I’m with someone else and you’re pissed rather than happy for me.  Sorry, but I don’t want to hear it.”

            Lily flinched and a part of him regretted the words, but another part of him really didn’t.  She had hurt him and now, when he had a chance to be happy without her, she was trying to crush that.  “Severus, please.  She’s…she’s shagged half the school.”

            “She’s shagged six guys, hardly half the school,” he said drily, continuing down the stairs.  There were dozens of sets of eyes on them and he hoped like hell that Raine wasn’t among them.

            Lily’s jaw dropped.  “What, you _talked_ about it with her?”

            “Avery told me and he had no reason to lie about it.”

            “She shagged Avery too?!”

            “Again, poor girl.”

            Lily scowled, hurrying after him.  “Listen to me, Severus Snape…”

            “No, you listen!” he snapped, his temper boiling over.  “I really like Raine.  I’m happy dating her, happier than I’ve been in ages, happier than I was with you last year when you were constantly telling me off for one thing or another about my Slytherin friends.  If you have any affection left for me at all, you’ll leave me alone.”

            “I don’t want to see you get hurt!”

            That stopped him cold and he turned to her with his eyebrows raised and fists clenched at his sides.  “Really?  I guess you should have thought of that before you chose Potter over me.”

            “I didn’t choose him over you, Severus.  I couldn’t deal with it anymore, your obsession with the Dark Arts and your friendships with people like Avery and Malfoy and that lot.  And then you called me that awful name…”

            “I was hurt and embarrassed and even you smirked at Potter when he did that to me!” he shouted at her.  “What did you expect me to say?!”

            Lily shrank, her face going red.  Students had slowed down to eavesdrop as they passed, but now they picked up speed again, possibly frightened of Severus.  That was fine with him.  He’d rather they be afraid than taunting him.  “I don’t know,” Lily finally said.  “Not that.”

            She hadn’t bothered to try denying smirking at Potter’s antics, at Severus, her best friend, being hung upside-down and stripped in front of half the school.  He sneered at her.  “Well, for the thousandth time, I’m sorry.  Now, leave me alone.”

            With nothing more, he stalked into Potions, his good mood now sour.

\------------------

            He tried not to think about Lily’s words, but they kept floating around him and wouldn’t let him be.  _She shagged Sirius Black._   To be fair, Black was the Gryffindor equivalent of Avery, but it also deeply disturbed him that she’d been with him.  In fact, it still disturbed him that she’d been with guys like that at all.

            When he got to the Great Hall for lunch, he sat at the very end of the Slytherin table, scowling down at his book.  After a few minutes of trying to ignore the whispers around him, a book dropped to the table in front of him, startling him into looking up.  Raine dropped onto the bench across from him and took a rather vicious bite out of an apple.  “So, your morning was as good as mine?” he asked darkly.

            She growled low in her throat, then swallowed her bite of apple and answered, “I got to listen to all kinds of awful things about you.  I suppose you got to hear all kinds of awful things about me?”

            “Yep.  I guess that makes us a match made in Hell.”

            Raine snorted and took another bite of apple, glaring down at her book, the DADA textbook, he realized.  After a moment, she asked, “Why do they call you ‘Snivellus?’”

            He bristled.  “Best I can tell, I have a silly first name.”

            “That’s cruel.”

            He nodded, his eyes boring holes into his hands.  He wanted to stop the words, but he couldn’t.  He had to know.  “Did you really shag Sirius Black?”

            She stiffened.  “Yes.  He was my type.  Why?”

            _He_ was _my type._   Maybe he wasn’t anymore.  “He’s an enemy of mine.  You must know.”

            “I know you have issues with him and Potter and that lot.  I didn’t realize you had a particular issue with Black.”

            “All four of them are my enemies, but Black almost got me killed a few years ago.  He’s  not just an arsehole, he’s reckless to the point of dangerous.”

            Raine exhaled and he felt her eyes on him, so he met them.  Her jaw was set like stone and her eyes were cold.  “I’m sorry, but that was what I was looking for.”

            “Just the once?”

            She chuckled once harshly.  “Black never shags anyone more than once and neither did I.”

            Past tense again.  Maybe she was considering that he could break her pattern.  God, he wanted to.  If he ended up being just another guy to her, it would about kill him.  He thought longer about her response and came back to _that was what I was looking for_.  She wanted dangerous.  She wanted risk.  Was that what she saw in him?  And, in any case, how deep did that self-destructive streak run?  Again, he remembered what she’d said to him yesterday about sex and wondered if she meant it.  “Raine.  Yesterday, you said, _maybe I like sex more than I like myself_.  Did you mean that?  Or were you just trying to get rid of me?”

            She sighed deeply and deflated, setting the half-eaten apple down on her plate and turning her eyes to her nails, which she began to scrape at.  “You don’t want to know.”

            “I do.”

            She shut her eyes altogether, then shook her head once.  “I meant it.  I don’t want to talk about it, but yes, I meant it.”

            Something inside him felt like it had broken and was beginning to hemorrhage.  _I like sex more than I like myself._   What had the world done to this poor woman to make her so hard on herself?  What had _she_ done to herself to become like this?  After a heavy moment, Severus reached across the table and laid a hand over hers, stilling it.  “I don’t want to be a part of you hurting yourself.  I’m here because I think you deserve better and, maybe deep down, you do want better.”

            Raine nodded stiffly, her eyes still shut.  She made no other response, though, and the bell rang before they had eaten anything.  For a moment, they just sat there in silence.  Then, Raine opened her eyes and gave him a piercing look.  “Would you kiss me?”

            He raised his eyebrows, surprised, but nodded.  He’d never say ‘no’ to a kiss.  Raine slipped her hand out from under his and moved around the table to sit backwards on the bench beside him.  He laid a hand on her far hip, sliding her closer, then kissed her.  Her lips were soft and warm and she tasted sweet and sour, like that apple.  Her fingers curled into the front of his robes and she kissed him back over and over until they were hardly breathing.  Her tongue snaked out to taste his lower lip…

            “Oi, Snape!”

            The moment shattered and, dazed, Severus pulled away from Raine to look up at Avery, Mulciber, and Rosier standing over them, gaping.  “What?” he growled at them as Raine leaned her head on his shoulder, hiding her face.

            Avery snorted, a crooked grin on his stupid face.  “Find a broom cupboard later.  We’re going to be late for Defense.”

            “I’ll catch up with you,” he said coldly, his eyes daring Avery to say something stupid.  Avery just kept smiling like that, shook his head, then led the other boys past.

            Severus turned his head back to Raine, who was still hiding in his shoulder, and whispered in her ear, “Sorry about that.  They’re idiots.”

            “They’re your friends.”

            “They just think they are,” he said, more truthfully than he’d realized before the words came out.  Lily had been his true friend, at least up until last year.  The Slytherins he hung around were mainly tools to keep bullies away, to gain connections to use later in life, that sort of thing.  They weren’t people he’d ever have an emotional conversation with.  In fact, he’d sooner eat his best cauldron than have an emotional conversation with Avery. 

He brushed his thumb across Raine’s hip and she squeezed herself tighter against his side.  She didn’t seem to want to move, so he wrapped his other arm around her back and clasped his hands.  He’d never held anyone like this, just held them and enjoyed the comfort of having them close, enjoyed their warmth and softness.  It was intoxicating.  Unable to help himself, he bent his head and breathed in the scent of Raine.  She smelled of ink and lilacs, the floral smell maybe coming from a shampoo she used or a perfume.  It was feminine, but sharp, not flouncy like some of the scents Lily wore.  It seemed to fit her well and he found he liked it.

            After a moment, Raine sighed and picked her head up, much to Severus’s regret.  “I suppose we should go.  We’ll be late for class.”

            “I suppose you’re right.”

\------------------

            Severus spent most of Defense Against the Dark Arts not learning anything, but trying to get Avery, Mulciber, and Rosier to shut up.  They all wanted to know what he’d done to get Raine to date him, what she liked him to do to her, ‘how she was.’  It made him sick and by the end of class, he was ready to hex the lot of them.

            “Come on, Snape!” Avery moaned as they left the DADA classroom.  “Give us one tiny detail!  You were with her last night, right?  You must’ve been.”

            “Piss off, Avery,” he said for the twelfth time.  “I don’t kiss and tell.”

            Mulciber groaned in frustration.  “No, but you should.  We’re your mates!  And that girl must know her way around a man.  I bet the things she does are mind-blowing.”

            “If that’s the case, he’s not going to jeopardize it by talking about it with you idiots!” Rosier said, laughing.  Mulciber scowled at this, but Avery laughed along.

            “She was good,” Avery said with a lewd smile.  “You should’ve heard the sounds she made when I ploughed her…”

            “Shut your damn mouth, Avery,” Severus growled, unable to bear it any longer.

            Avery grinned and held up both hands, but shut his mouth. 

\------------------

            That night, Severus and Raine sat together at the end of the Slytherin table again for dinner, then escaped to a dark corner of the library, well away from Madam Pince and the door.  Severus dropped into an armchair and Raine into the one beside him and he watched as she shut her eyes and threw her head back.  “It’s been a long day,” he said wearily.

            “It has.  I didn’t expect this to be so difficult.”

            “Do you regret it?”

            The words were out before he could stop them and Raine opened her eyes to look at him.  She frowned deeply upon seeing his face, but shook her head once.  “No.  Do you?”

            “Of course not.”

            “Good.”  She dragged herself out of her chair, then moved to stand between his knees looking down at him.  “I suppose Avery gave you a hard time?”

            He lowered his eyes to the hem of her skirt and reached out to finger it.  To his surprise, she let him.  “He did.  I tried to shut him up, but for the most part he wouldn’t listen.”

            “What did he say about me?”

            “You don’t want to know.”

            Raine slowly lowered herself to sit on his left thigh, her hands going to his green and silver tie and her eyes following them.  His cock twitched having her so close and he couldn’t help gripping her by the hip to keep her there.  He’d never had this much physical affection from anyone and he was starved for it.  “I expect it was mostly embellishments,” Raine said drily.  “He only lasted about five minutes.”

            Severus snorted, his stomach unknotting a bit.  “That makes me feel a little better.”

            Raine raised a teasing eyebrow at him.  “Does it?  How long can you last?”

            His stomach dropped.  A flush broke out on his cheeks and he tried to focus his eyes on her fingers playing with his tie.  “Actually, I wouldn’t know.”

            Her fingers stilled.  “Oh.  I didn’t realize…I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward.”  Raine seemed to choke on her words for a moment, then said quietly, “It’s just that from what you did to me last night I assumed you had experience.”

            A warm bubble expanded inside his chest and a sly grin broke out on his face.  He had convinced a girl with experience that he had experience based on _what he did to her._   He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so pleased with himself.  “No, just a good imagination.”

            Raine met his eyes with a sly grin of her own.  “Really?  I’d love to know what else you can imagine.”

            He bent to kiss her once on the mouth, then said against her lips, “Well, I’ve spent a lot of time imagining snogging in this library.”

            “I’m sold,” Raine said.  Then she kissed him back, her kisses slow and heavy, her mouth opening to his and her tongue seeking his out.  The breath rushed from his lungs and the blood began to travel from his extremities as he wrapped both arms around her.  It was a slow kiss that he found himself drowning in, losing his breath, losing all sense of up and down, losing control.  His hand roved up her side to the underside of her breast, causing her breath to hitch, then back down to her hip and beyond to her thigh.  Raine shivered in his arms and he dared to slip his hand under her skirt and lay it on her bare thigh.  Raine’s hands tangled in his robes and hair as he gently mapped her scars with his fingers.  The kiss slowed even further and her hands found their way to his sides, slipping inside his robes to press against his ribs where his scars were.  He gently sucked on her lower lip, then opened his mouth to allow her tongue to dance with his, slow and erotic.  When his thumb found what felt like a line of narrow scabbing on her upper thigh, Raine winced and Severus turned to stone.  “Is that one new?” he whispered to her, opening his eyes to examine her face.  Her face was scrunched up, her eyes shut tight, and she nodded once jerkily.  His heart broke and he carefully slid his hand away from the wound.  She’d done that last night after he’d said goodnight to her.  When he’d been getting off in his dorm, she’d been cutting in hers.  “I’m so sorry.”

            Raine’s hands tightened on him and he tightened his, holding her there lest she disappear.  A single tear leaked from the corner of her eye and tracked down her cheek.  Her hands loosened and she swiped the tear away with one of them.  “I’m sorry.  I just…” she exhaled sharply, struggling for words.  “I just didn’t think I’d ever find someone who got it.  I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

            Severus shut his eyes and leaned in to kiss her cheek.  “I feel the same way.  I don’t want you hurting, though.  Please.  You’ve bled enough.”

            “I don’t deserve this.”

            “Raine, please.  You deserve this.  Please believe that.”  When she didn’t answer, he opened his eyes again to find her still fighting off tears.  “Raine?”

            “Yeah,” she gasped.

            He caressed from her temple for her jaw once, then once again.  His chest ached at the thought of Raine spending last night alone in her bed, carving that scar into her thigh, thinking she didn’t deserve to be with someone who cared, who made her feel.  “You are a beautiful, intelligent woman.  You deserve to not be hurting.  Okay?”

            She shook her head once hard, then tried to stand.  He held her pinned against him and she only struggled for a moment.  “Maybe you don’t get it,” she said quietly.

            That cut deep.  He slid his hold out of her skirt and used it to grip her wrist, pressing her hand more firmly against his side.  “You know I do.  I’m saying the things I wish someone had said to me and when I say them to you, I mean it.  You deserve to feel good, to be happy.”  Another tear leaked from the corner of her eye and he brushed this one away.  What had happened to make her believe she didn’t deserve better?  He thought then of the way she’d reacted when she found the scars on his back, the way she’d stiffened, then kissed him harder, like she was trying to draw the pain out of him.  “Someone else put scars on you too, didn’t they?” he asked lowly, a surprising amount of anger and protectiveness behind the words.  He hated the idea of someone laying hands on her, hated the idea of someone striking her or shouting at her.  He thought of his father screaming at him, throwing bottles at the walls, removing his belt and coming at him with fire blazing in his eyes.  Did she have scars on her back too?  The thought filled him with sickness and rage.

            Raine took a deep, shuddering breath, then nodded.

            His stomach gave a hard lurch and his fingers dug into her as he tried to regain control of his soul.  No one deserved that, certainly not this lovely girl.  “Do you want to tell me?”

            She shook her head and forced words past her lips.  “No.  Not right now.”

            “That’s okay, darling.”  The pet name rolling off his tongue shocked him, but once he’d thought about it, it felt right.  He kissed her lips, lulling her out of her pain, bringing her back to him.  “You’re safe with me.  I’m not going to hurt you.  I’m not going to let anyone touch you.”

            She nodded, then kissed him back.  She was still crying slow, lonely tears, but he kissed them away and kept on kissing her until they stopped, until she got lost in him.

            _If I ever find out who laid a hand on her, I’ll kill them._         


	3. You've Bled Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with a TRIGGER WARNING due to graphic description of self-harm. The scene in question is brief and clearly marked with the words TRIGGER WARNING. If you don't think you should read it, please skip it. It exists because I thought it important to know exactly what Severus is feeling and why he does what he does, but some of you may already know that from personal experience. If so, you have all my love and sympathy and all my best wishes for your health and happiness going forward. If you have not gotten help, please consider it. <3 - Lenore

            Severus quickly determined that snogging Raine was his new favorite thing to do.

            They often spent time reading together in the library, Raine’s legs stretched out over his.  She would be considered clingy by most guys’ standards, Severus thought, but he liked that.  He’d gone his whole childhood without a hug, without a hand in his, and even his friendship with Lily hadn’t been very physical.  Raine was constantly touching him and whenever he felt her hands on him, her legs across him, her head on his shoulder, or her arms around him, his soul seemed to lift a bit and the world became less dark.

            They often did homework together too.  They had a lot of the same classes, even if they were rarely in the same class period.  Raine was brilliant at Transfiguration and Charms and she appreciated his help in Potions and Alchemy.  They both liked Defense. Raine was as studious as him, so they would often spend hours in the library buried in books and parchment, trading papers back and forth giving feedback on essays, sharing notes, recommending books.

            He loved the time they spent together reading and studying.  He’d always loved reading and studying and doing those things with someone who loved them as much was great.  They just weren’t his favorite things anymore, not compared to snogging.

            Raine shoved him into the broom cupboard in the Ravenclaw Tower stairwell and the door was barely shut before he was shoving off her robes, then her jumper and shirt.  She helped him with the buttons and undid her blue and bronze tie herself, then she was on him, kissing him hard and fast so it was difficult to breathe.  He kissed her back over and over half a hundred times, his hands scrambling to find the clasp of her bra and undo it.  He was shit at unclasping bras, he’d learned, and Raine giggled until he got it, then his hands were on her breasts, teasing and caressing, memorizing the way they felt in his hands, soft and smooth and warm.  He shoved her up against the wall, knocking over a broom in the process, and his mouth left hers to track kisses down her throat over her chest, and across her breasts.  Her hands tangled in his hair and she cried out softly as he swirled his tongue around her nipple, then drew it into his mouth and sucked.  “Oh!” she moaned.  “Severus…”

            He loved the way she said his name in that high, needy voice.  It sent the blood running right to his cock and set his hands to shaking.  He wrapped his arms around her, loving the way it felt to have her in his embrace, and kept on kissing her, his hands wandering over her back.  Scars marred her skin there…scars he’d felt before and chosen not to ask about.  She wasn’t there yet; when she was ready to tell him, she would, or at least he hoped she would.

            Raine grabbed him by the chin and jerked his face back up to hers to kiss her on the mouth again.  She drew his lower lip into her mouth and softly bit it, sending a bolt of electricity down his spine and into his core.  His hands found her arse and lifted her up, hitching her legs around his hips and pinning her against the wall tighter.  The shift pressed the hardness at the front of his trousers between her thighs and she moaned at the pressure.  As the kiss slowed and deepened, Raine moaned again and rolled her hips slowly, grinding her body against his.  That movement turned him rock-hard and a growl escaped his lips unexpectedly.  Raine shivered and flicked the hem of her skirt up.  He took the hint and carefully balanced her so he could slide his hands up her skirt and grip her arse with only her knickers between them.  The sleeves of his robes slid up and the lines of the scars on his forearms laid across the ones on her thighs felt strange, but not wrong.  Raine laid both arms across his shoulders, her fingers twining into his hair, which she seemed to like long.  She was always pulling on it when they snogged.  “Severus…” she moaned against his lips.  “I want you.”

            Those were his favorite words in the world and nothing compared to the way he felt when she said them.  “I want you,” he returned.  “But I don’t want to shag you in a broom cupboard.”

            She rolled her hips again and his eyes rolled back in his head.  “Yes, you do.”

            “Yes, I do, but I’d rather shag you somewhere else.  There must be somewhere slightly more romantic.”

            “Like where?  We should find this mythical romantic place.”

            He chuckled and kissed her again while he thought.  “I’d really like to shag you in a bed.”

            “Hmm…I’ve never actually shagged in a bed.”

            _One of many reasons why I’m not going to shag you in a broom cupboard._   He didn’t want to be wondering whether she’d been fucked before in the same cupboard by Black or Avery or anyone else.  He, of course, didn’t say that, though.  Instead, he said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to do it somewhere comfortable?  Somewhere…horizontal?”

            She nodded, then drowned him in kisses, sighing and moaning between them.  “I still want you,” she whimpered.

            “I’m not going to shag you here, but name something else and you’ll have it,” he said. 

            “Anything?”

            The word ‘anything’ immediately sent his guard up.  He’d learned from the time they’d spent together that Raine was quite clever and not above Slytherin cunning when she wanted to use it.  “Within reason, yes.”

            Raine chuckled softly, then whispered in his ear, “Would you do that thing to me again?  What you did the first time we were together?”

            “Mmm…fuck yes,” he groaned.  Her tongue snaked out and she drew his earlobe into her mouth and sucked.  His cock jerked and she must have felt it because she whimpered.  He carefully lowered her until she set her feet on the floor, then he moved his hands around her hips to her front, sliding one down inside her knickers.  She gasped and he dipped a finger inside her so her whole body tightened around him and she moaned.  He was so hard and his head was swimming, unable to process anything but how badly he wanted her.  He’d have to be quick about getting her off if he was going to keep control of himself.  He gave her one more kiss on the mouth, then dropped to his knees, tugging off her knickers as he ducked his head under her skirt.  Raine’s hands were still in his hair and they gripped locks of it now as he kissed up her thighs, his finger still slowly pumping inside her.  “Oh, god…” she moaned.  He laid soft kisses on half a dozen of her scars…he found no fresh ones…then laid a kiss on her clit, his tongue flicking out to tease her and circle her.  “Oh!” she cried.  “Severus, please…”

            He sucked her and she screamed.  She wouldn’t last long at all, but he felt about as close as she was.  He shut his eyes tight and tried to focus himself, then replaced his finger with his tongue.  He never wanted to forget the way she tasted, the way it felt to have his tongue inside her, to have her wanting him so badly that she was willing to be so vulnerable with him.  Raine tugged on his hair and gasped, “Oh, god…oh fuck….”  Her reaction dragged a growl from the back of his throat and her entire body shuddered around him.  He wrapped his arms around her hips to steady her and slipped his tongue in deeper, arcing it up to stroke her G-spot.  She cried out and pressed down hard on his head, burying his tongue inside her and his nose in her black curls.  He groaned and drank her in, licking and sucking until she shattered, screaming and moaning.  He very nearly came with her and had to sit back from her immediately when she was done to gasp for air, both to reopen his lungs and to clear his head. 

Raine fell to her knees before him and her mouth was on his, her hands struggling with the zipper of his trousers.  “Raine…” he gasped between kisses.  “Darling, no.”

“We won’t shag,” she promised, her voice low and drowsy, satisfied.  “But I want you to come too.”  She got his zipper undone and took his cock in her hands, stroking up and down slow and tight, the way he wanted to fuck her.  His head fell back and he groaned in agonized pleasure.  He’d never felt anything better in his life than her hands grasping him.  “Are you close?” she asked breathlessly.  He didn’t have words in him, he just nodded, his eyes slamming shut.  She kissed the corner of his mouth, then whispered against his cheek, “I want you to come on my breasts.”  A growl escaped him and he was kissing her desperately as she stroked him faster, up and down, up and down….

He came hard and fast, releasing on her breasts as she held him tight in her lovely hands.  Her forehead leaned into his, their noses and lips brushing as he came down, gasping for air, taking it in in gulps.  Raine chuckled softly, then kissed him once and whispered, “That was so hot.  I love that growl you’ve got.”

Severus chuckled too, then kissed her back.  “Yeah.  I didn’t know I had that in me.”

“I’d love to know what else you have in you,” she said with a smirk.

\-------------------

            It was the next day that they finally had a run-in with the Marauders.

            Severus and Raine were leaving the Great Hall after dinner, arms full of books and bound for the library.  They had an essay on nonverbal spells to write for Defense and were eager to get started.  Severus liked nonverbal spells and found he was good at them.  He liked being able to catch people off-guard and, so far, he’d done really well in his classes with them.  He found he was good at predicting other people’s spells too, and had mastered casting the shield charm nonverbally as a defense.  They were talking quietly about nonverbal spells as they walked when footsteps sounded behind them.

            “Oi!  Larkshire!”

            Raine stiffened like a gargoyle and Severus scowled, knowing that voice all too well.  “Keep walking,” Raine said grimly, picking up the pace.

            “Larkshire!” Sirius Black called after them.  “What are you doing with Snivellus?”

            “Piss off, Black,” Raine called over her shoulder.

            “Oooh…” Potter said, laughing.  “I don’t think she likes you much, Padfoot.”

            “Nonsense!  She liked me just fine last spring.  Come on, Larkshire.  What’s a pretty girl like you doing with a greasy git like Snivellus?”

            Severus’s blood began to simmer in his veins.  Raine looked over her shoulder to sneer at Black, then took Severus by the elbow and led him around the next corner.  “Don’t listen to them,” she murmured to Severus.  “They’re just trying to start something.”

            “If they don’t shut up, I’m going to finish it.”

            “Can you imagine kissing that greaseball, Prongs?  Ugh, my stomach turns just thinking of it.  How much time do you spend in the shower scrubbing that off, Larkshire?”

            “Nice one, Padfoot!” Pettigrew said eagerly.

            “Oh, shut up, the lot of you!” Raine snapped.

            Black scowled deeply as Pettigrew flinched.  “Hey!  Don’t tell him to shut up!”

            Severus stopped and turned on the Marauders as they caught up to them.  Pettigrew seemed to have shrunk a bit at Raine’s admonishment and Lupin was muttering something in his ear as Black and Potter glared at Raine.  “She was talking to you too, Black,” Severus said.  “Or did you miss that?”

            “Are you looking for trouble, Snivelly?” Black snarled at him.

            Severus dropped his books to the floor, revealing his wand in his hand.  Getting hexed by Black for nothing was one thing, but he wasn’t about to let it happen in front of Raine, or worse, have her get hexed.  “Are you?”

            Black drew his wand, but Lupin’s hand was on his arm immediately.  “Easy, Sirius.  Come on, let’s leave them be.”

            “Oh, come on, Remus.  Just a bit of fun,” Black whined.

            Raine shifted her books into one arm, then flicked her wand silently.  Black’s wand went flying out of his hand and he stumbled backwards, landing on his arse.  Severus couldn’t help a smirk as Pettigrew went to Black’s side and Potter and Lupin drew their wands.  He liked seeing Black fall on his arse, but being proud of Raine’s silent _expelliarmus_ also warmed him up inside.  “You’re going to get yourself in trouble, Larkshire,” Potter said.

            “Just leave us alone,” Raine said, her wand still raised.  “Go find someone else to torment.”

            “Fine,” Black said, getting to his feet, his dark eyes locked on Severus.  “I just wonder, Snivelly, how you manage to get her off with that little pencil cock of yours.  She could do, and has done, much better than you.  In fact, she’s spent the last six months throwing herself around trying to find someone who compares to _me_.”

            With a glare like death, Raine jabbed the air with her wand and sent a jet of red light at Black, throwing him back into the wall.  Immediately, jets of red and green came back at her, but not before Severus threw up a shield charm between them, sending the spells back at Potter and Lupin.  Without hesitating, Severus bent to scoop up his books in one arm, then they were running down the hall away from the Marauders.  A hex hit the wall just over Raine’s head as they spun a corner, then red light and blue light chased them and burst on a wall to Severus’s left.  They were just about to spin around another corner into a narrow corridor when a shot of green light hit Raine’s shoulder, sending her slamming into the wall and dropping to the floor with her books and wand.  Severus skidded to a stop, dropped his books beside Raine’s, and cast a series of dueling charms at the advancing Marauders.  One hex caught Pettigrew in the face, sending him flying arse over teakettle.  Potter had to jump sideways to avoid another.  Meanwhile, Black and Lupin were still sending hexes and jinxes of their own and Severus was struggling to block them and still throw enough of his own to keep them at bay.  Suddenly, a series of spells shot from Raine, who was still on the floor just behind him, sending Potter and Black both to the floor stunned.

            Lupin immediately held up both hands in surrender, then stowed his wand and went to help his friends.  Severus stowed his own wand, then bent to help Raine to her feet.  She was shaking, but whether it was in anger, fright, or pain he couldn’t tell.  With a jerk of her head, she flipped her long, black hair out of her face, then picked up her books, not putting her wand away just yet.  Severus picked up his books too and they hurried from the scene.

            When they’d entered the library and gotten out of Madam Pince’s earshot, Severus threw his books on a nearby table and grabbed Raine’s books too to set them down.  Raine was breathing heavily and refusing to look at him, so he grabbed her by the hips and pushed her down into a chair.  She hissed at him, but otherwise didn’t complain, so he gently prodded at her shoulder where she’d been hit.  She winced and he backed off.  “Just bruised,” she murmured.

            “Did you get hit anywhere else?”

            “Just more bruises from when I fell.  I’m fine.  Just angry.  I can’t believe they’d dare to pull that shit.”

            Severus slumped into the seat opposite her, suddenly more weary than angry.  Maybe it was having Raine in the mix that made it feel different.  “Welcome to my life.”

            Raine’s grey eyes snapped to him.  “Is that what they’re like with you?  Sneaking up on you in dark corridors, throwing hexes at you?”

            “Usually there’s less running,” he admitted.  “I was hoping that having you with me would mean they wouldn’t be committed enough to chase us.  I guess I was wrong.  You really pissed Black off.”

            “Good,” she said grimly.  “He pissed me off first.  He deserved a _stupefy_ for saying that shit about you.”

            She wasn’t just angry at the Marauders for taunting and attacking her.  She’d been defending _him._   She’d stunned Black and Potter and had taken a spell to the shoulder in defense of _him_.  Warmth bubbled up in his chest and he realized that he was smiling a bit as he took her hand and kissed her knuckles.

            “What?” she asked.

            “Thank you.”

            Raine softened and squeezed his hand gently.  Under the table, her ankle hooked around his and she stroked his calf with her foot.  “Of course.  How else would I react?”

            Laughter rang in his ears and he saw again that tiniest of smirks on Lily’s face.  It was enough to wipe the trace of a smile from his face.  “Most people point and laugh.”

            “I’m not most people.”

            “I know that.”  He hung his head and the unsaid words hung between them.  _I’m just not used to anything else._

            There was a moment of heaviness in the air, then Raine squeezed his hand again and said firmly, “I’m not most people.  I will never laugh at you and I will happily hex anyone who does.”

            He didn’t deserve her.  He didn’t deserve this at all.  _Can you imagine kissing that greaseball, Prongs?....She could do, and has done, much better than you…..How much time do you spend in the shower scrubbing that off, Larkshire?....I just wonder, Snivelly, how you manage to get her off using that little pencil cock of yours?_

            “Severus?  Where’d you go?”

            He blinked and tried to wash the words away, but they hovered in the back of his mind.  “I’m fine.”

\------------------------                    **TRIGGER WARNING**

            That night, he lay in bed turning over their words and turning over his dagger in his hand.  How could he think that he was good enough for her?  She’d never have anything from him but ostracism and taunting and misery.  How was he supposed to take care of her when he couldn’t take care of himself?

            _What are you staring at, you son of a bitch?  What are you looking at?  You’re just a damn waste of space anyway, you don’t have a right to care.  What are you looking at?  Get the fuck out of here!  Get out of here or I’ll give you something to cry about!_

            He couldn’t seem to breathe right.  He laid there, in the pitch blackness, seeing his father’s enraged face, hearing Black and Potter laughing at him in his misery, and he couldn’t breathe.

            _She could do, and has done, much better than you._

Under the covers, he pressed the tip of the dagger into his hip, very gently, and when a shot of ice-cold pain that told him he’d broken skin raced along his nerves, he exhaled.  So slowly, he dug the dagger in, then sliced outwards along his hip.  He gulped in oxygen and released it, over and over.  He could breathe.

When his head cleared, he wiped the dagger on the bandage he had set aside, then laid his hand across the pulsing cut.  Hot blood seeped between his fingers and his eyes slid shut.  He savored the feeling for a moment, then taped down the bandage.

He lay awake, feeling the blood pulse, turning the dagger over and over in his hand.

\----------------------                          **END TRIGGER WARNING**

            The next morning, he woke from a brief, restless sleep filled with nightmares.  When he stumbled to the bathroom, he checked the mirror and found himself looking haggard.  He tried a shower and, though he felt a tiny bit better, it couldn’t fix the greyish tone to his skin or the sunken look to his cheeks and eyes.

            He made it to breakfast late and shuffled in to find Raine.  He almost didn’t want to see her and regretted not just staying in bed that day.  He had Potions today, though, and he never missed Potions.  He would have to face her, to face what he did and how little he was worth.  She was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, a beam of sunlight glinting off her raven-black hair, and he approached to sit down next to her.  They’d taken to sitting side-by-side because she liked having him in touching distance. 

            _She could do, and has done, much better than you._

            At his approach, Raine looked up with a small smile that wavered when she saw him.  “You must have been up late.  You look tired.”  When he didn’t reply, what was left of her smile drained from her face and she gripped his wrist.  “Severus?  Why were you up late?”

            _Weak.  Pathetic.  How can you take care of her when you can’t take care of yourself?_ He could only shake his head, keeping his eyes on the floor between them.

            Raine stood up sharply, collected her books under one arm, and hauled him out of the Great Hall.  Eyes followed them.  They hadn’t gone far before she found an empty classroom and shoved him inside.  Once there, he leaned against the nearest desk, his eyes still on the floor.  He couldn’t bear to meet her eyes.  Not when he so clearly didn’t deserve her, not when she would see him as even weaker now.  Maybe she would even think he’d done it to get attention from her.  The thought disgusted him.  Raine locked the door, then cast a silencing charm and turned to him, her eyes like blades.  “Where?”

            Severus just shook his head.  He felt so tired.  He really should’ve stayed in bed.

            “Severus.  Where?”

            She wasn’t going to just let it go.  He’d have to show her.  His eyes tightened shut in shame and he said softly, “Left hip.”

            Raine dropped her books on the desk next to him, then stood between his feet, unzipping his trousers and pulling them down at his hip.  His skin crawled anxiously and a shot of illness wracked him when she found the wound, unbandaged it, and hissed at it.  “Severus…this is deep.  You need stitches.”

            He shook his head ‘no.’  “I’ve done worse and not gotten stitches.  It’s fine.”

            “This is not fine,” she said, still staring at the wound.  He opened his eyes to find her grey ones shining, but her jaw was set in determination.  Keeping one hand on his hip to hold his waistband and the bloody bandage where they were, she used her other to draw her wand and hold the tip less than an inch from the seeping wound.  Softly, almost like a prayer, she whispered, “ _Vulnera sanentur.”_  Warmth and a minor itching feeling bloomed in his hip and he stared down at it in confusion as she whispered again.  “ _Vulnera sanentur.  Vulnera sanentur._ ”  The blood stopped oozing…droplets even seemed to be receding back into the wound, which was very slowly closing as the skin around it became less pink and inflamed.  “ _Vulnera sanentur.  Vulnera sanentur._ ” 

            The wound closed and the skin faded to its usual tone, leaving no scar behind.

            Severus stared at the skin in awe, then looked to Raine, who was also staring at it but seemed to be trying to determine if she’d done a thorough enough job.  She had.  There was no pain and no sign that there had ever been a cut there.  “How did you do that?” he asked weakly.

            “It’s a spell I learned from a book,” Raine said, sliding her wand back up her sleeve to the pocket she stashed it in.  “Believe it or not, I’d like to be a healer someday.”

            He blinked several times, baffled.  He couldn’t help thinking of the scabbed wound on her thigh he’d found and asking, “Why didn’t you use it on yourself?”

            The emotion washed from Raine’s face and when she met his gaze, her eyes were empty.  “That would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”

            His stomach heaved and he had to choke to hold back vomit.  Raine laid a hand on his shoulder and leaned in close to force him to look her in the eye.  “Why did you do this?”

            Severus shut his eyes tight.  “You know why.”

            “Why this time, though?  Was it because of Black and that lot?”

            _She could do, and has done, much better than you._   “Yes and no.”

            Raine slid her fingers into the damp hair at the nape of his neck and wound them in.  “Sev,” she said softly.  The name felt like a sedative seeping warmth through his veins.  A soft breath eased in and out of his lungs.  “You can’t let those bastards get inside your head.  They don’t know you; they’re just saying those things to make themselves feel better.  I don’t want you hurting like this.”

            He shook his head slowly, his eyes still shut.  _I don’t deserve this woman._   “I had to.”

            “Sev,” she breathed.  “You don’t deserve to be hurting like this.  You don’t deserve what you did.”

            “I don’t know about that,” he whispered, trailing his fingertips along her hip.  He loved her body, loved holding her, touching her, kissing her.  But he didn’t deserve it.  And he certainly didn’t deserve her kindness or understanding.  He didn’t deserve her tears or her spells.  No.  He was worthless.  “I know I don’t deserve this.”

            “Yes, you do,” she said forcefully.  “If I deserve this, so do you.  You’re a good person, Severus.  Kind and clever and brave.”

            “I’m none of those things.”

            She pulled hard on his hair, jerking his face up and sending his gaze back to hers.  Her eyes were shining with unshed tears, but beneath that they were fierce.  “Listen to me, Severus Snape.  You’re a good man and you deserve to be happy.  If what they said got to you, I’m sorry.  Fuck them.  They don’t know what they’re talking about.  I’m happy with you, happier than I’ve been in years.  I haven’t cut since that first night we were together thanks to you.  You believe I’m worth something and you believe it strongly enough to make me believe it, at least a little.  That’s amazing.  And I believe you’re worth something.  You’re worth so much.”

            His father’s voice haunted him and, before he knew what he was saying, he uttered the words, “I’m worthless.  Just a waste of space.”

            Raine laid her free hand on his thigh.  It was shaking.  “Who said that to you?  Severus?  Who said that?”

            “My father.”

            “Is he the one that marked up your back?”

            He nodded, his body no longer entirely under his control.

            Raine exhaled slowly, as if she were trying to reign in her temper.  Her eyes were still blade-like and a single tear rolled down her cheek.  “He’s wrong.  Do you hear me?  He’s a bastard, he’s a monster, and he’s wrong.”

            He was a monster.  That Severus knew.  He would never forget the terror in his mother’s eyes or the tears on her face as she lay curled up on the kitchen floor, her hands over her head to ward off the coming blows.  Was he wrong about Severus?  He didn’t know.  Sometimes he believed in himself.  Sometimes he knew he was intelligent and creative and clever, more so than many of his peers.  Sometimes, though, he felt like the waste of space his father said he was.

            “Sev,” Raine breathed, laying one hand over the scars on his arm, hidden under his sleeve.  She knew exactly where they were, had felt them criss-crossing the scars on her arms and thighs.  “You’ve bled enough.”

            They were his words, the words he’d said to her when he found that fresh scar on her thigh.  _You’ve bled enough._   He hadn’t realized at the time how important the words were, how perfect, how badly he had needed to hear them.  He felt it now hearing them roll off her tongue.  _You’ve bled enough._   Everything he’d done, all the scars, it was all enough to atone for his shortcomings, for his mistakes.  It was enough to wipe away his father’s voice from his mind.  It was enough to teach him empathy, something the Severus from a year ago would not have been able to show Raine.  It was enough to wipe the slate clean.

_You’ve bled enough._

            He sighed in sadness and relief and let his head fall forward onto Raine’s shoulder.  Reflexively, she wrapped her arms around him, her warmth and softness enveloping him.  She smelled of lilacs and ink.  He didn’t realize he was crying until she whispered, “ _Shh…_ ” in his ear.  The display of weakness would have horrified him before, would have horrified him now with anyone else.

            Not with her. 

            “ _Shh…_ ” she whispered.  “You’re safe with me.  Anyone who wants to hurt you in any way is going to have to step over my dead body.  _Shh…._   You’re safe.”

            For the first time in years, he _felt_ safe.


	4. The Halloween Dance

            He’d been dreading the Halloween feast and all the frivolity that came with it, especially since this year Hogwarts would be holding a Halloween dance on the 31st.  Now, though, he found himself almost looking forward to it.  This year, he had someone to spend it with, someone who got him and wasn’t going to judge him, someone who’d be at more or less the same comfort level as him.  Besides, he liked the idea of seeing Raine in dress robes.

            As they sat together at dinner a few nights before Halloween, he snuck glances at Raine and tried to imagine her in something other than her usual school robes.  What color dress robes would she wear?  How much skin would she show?  Arms?  Upper chest?  Maybe a bit of shoulders or cleavage?  The thought of seeing her dressed up, maybe with her hair up and her lovely neck exposed, completely overrode all higher-level thinking once he got on that.

            Raine was frowning deeply, picking at her shepherd’s pie as she read their latest assignment in _Alchemy: A Beginner’s Guide._   There was a crease between her eyebrows that he was tempted to kiss.  “Sometimes I think I just took Alchemy to punish myself,” she muttered.

            “Why did you take it?”

            “I thought it would make me a better healer,” she said wearily.  “ _Vulnera Sanentur_ is an alchemical spell.”

            “I suppose that makes sense.”  Water and blood were, after all, two of the most critical elements in alchemy, as well as in the human body.  The crease in Raine’s brow deepened and she flipped back a few pages to reread something.  “Do you want help?” Severus asked.

            Raine sighed and frowned a moment longer, then shut her book and set it aside.  “No.  I’m going to try at it again later.”  She gave him a wry smile and he watched as the reading fog lifted from her eyes.  “I’m sure you could help me, though.  Severus Snape the potions master.”

            He nudged her with his shoulder, a flush breaking out on his face.  “Don’t tease.”

            She smirked and, not taking her eyes off him, moved her hand from her lap to his, trailing her fingers along his inner thigh.  His cock immediately began to respond and his breath hitched.  “I do love to tease, though,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

            The words brought a smile to his lips.  “I know you do.”

            Raine smirked at him a moment longer, then stilled her hand on his leg and looked shyly down at her half-eaten dinner.  “So…are you taking me to the Halloween dance?”

            He blushed again nervously.  “Well…I was hoping to.”

            “Good.”  She directed a shy smile at him.  “My dad bought me a set of dress robes for my birthday and I was looking forward to being able to wear them.”

            “What do they look like?”

            That teasing smirk came back.  “You’ll see.”

            They were leaving dinner when footsteps sounded behind them, followed by a voice.  “Oi, Snape!”  Severus couldn’t help a groan as he paused and turned to face Avery, who was flanked by Mulciber and Rosier.  Avery was grinning crookedly and his eyes kept wandering to Raine, who was as stiff as a gargoyle at his side.  “We thought you could take Malvinia to the Halloween dance.  She still needs a partner.  What do you think?”

            Was he daft?  What was he thinking to pull this shit in front of Raine?  Severus’s hand found Raine’s, which was in a fist at her side.  “Actually, Avery, I’m already going with Raine.  Which should have been obvious.”

            Avery snorted and cast an appraising look at Raine.  “Come on, Snape.  This one’s good for a shag every now and then, but she’s not exactly long-term material.  Malvinia is a gorgeous girl from a nice pure-blood family.  Much better for you and for everyone.”

            His blood ran cold.  He knew exactly what was meant by _everyone_.  “Did Lucius put you up to this?”

            “No,” Avery said defensively.  “I’m taking the initiative on this.  We’ve talked about it and this isn’t good for your image, Snape.  If you really are committed to the cause, you can’t be running around with a slutty half-blood.”

            Now his blood began to boil and he felt his face contort into a look of wrath.  “Don’t you dare talk about her like that.  Not to her and not to me.  What kind of idiot are you?”

            Avery’s eyebrows shot up and the other boys looked to each other in surprise.  “What did you just call me?”

            “What you are,” he growled.  “An idiot.  Now, piss off before I decide to take what you said more personally.”

            Avery scoffed and drew his wand.  “You wouldn’t dare, Snape.  You’ve always been a coward at heart hiding behind Lucius.  He’s not going to be happy when he hears about this.”

            Under other circumstances, the threat would have bothered him, especially since he had been trying to do well in Lucius’s eyes for a long time.  When it came down to it in this moment, though, where it was a choice between Lucius and Raine, he didn’t even hesitate.  “Yeah, well, if he isn’t, he isn’t.  If you think I’m going to hurt a girl I care about just because you or Lucius think it’s a good idea, you don’t know me at all.”

            Avery looked to Mulciber in confusion and mild anger, then turned his attention back to Raine, his lips curling in distaste.  Raine cringed at the look.  “She’s not worth it, Snape.  She’s just a whore.  Just a half-blood, cutter, whore.”

            He didn’t even realize he’d drawn his wand until a jet of green light shot from it, sending Avery arse over teakettle and to the floor.  Once he’d done it, they all stood there in shock for a heavy moment, then Mulciber and Rosier went to help Avery up.  Avery’s eyes were wild when he looked at Severus once more, who set his jaw and began walking away with Raine in tow.  “You’re going to regret this, Snape.  Have fun with your slut now, but you’re going to regret this!”

            As they hurried away, eyes and whispers following them, Raine muttered to him, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

            “Maybe not, but I wasn’t going to stand there and let him talk that way about you,” he snarled.  As he stowed his wand, he found his hands shaking.  He didn’t know whether it was from adrenaline or anger and didn’t care.

            Raine squeezed his hand and he shot her a glance to find tears on her cheek and redness in her eyes.  Impulsively, he let go of her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders instead.  As if automatically, she leaned into him and fell into step beside him.  They were about the same height, so it was easy to walk with her pressed to his side.  The whispers were getting louder around them and when Severus heard the words _called her a cutter_ , he took a detour behind the tapestry that covered the hidden stairwell to the second floor.  When they were alone, Raine mumbled almost to herself, “He’s right, you know.  They’re all right.  I’m not good enough for you.”

            The rage came back full force.  “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

            “It’s not.”  He gently took her by the hips and lifted her over the trick step, wrenching a soft sob from her.  When he rejoined her, she curled into him, stopping them halfway up the stairs.  He wrapped both arms around her and held her as she had him several times now, whispering nonsense words into her hair.  “I’m a slut,” she whimpered.  “You don’t even know how many guys I’ve been with.  I don’t deserve you.”

            “ _Shh…._   I don’t know how many guys you’ve been with and I don’t care except for the fact that I don’t like how it bothers you and I don’t like the moments where I wonder how I compare,” he admitted, surprising himself with the honesty.  “I don’t think you’re a slut and I know you deserve better than all that.  You deserve to be happy and if I make you happy, then you deserve this.”  Her fingers dug into his back and her forehead into his shoulder.  He squeezed her tighter, hoping that by holding her he could convince her that he wasn’t going to let go.  “Raine?  I’m not going anywhere.  Do you hear me?  I’m not going anywhere.”

            She sobbed again and he kissed her hair, savoring the smell of lilacs and ink.  He’d thought he loved Lily, but he’d never felt this protective of her, never clutched her like he was terrified she’d disappear.  This was so different.  “Raine.  I’m not going anywhere.  Do you understand?”

            She nodded once and shuddered, burrowing deeper into him.

            A flash of light told him the tapestry had moved and they were no longer alone.  Whoever it was paused a few steps up and catcalled, “Oooh…Snivellus and his girl getting it on in the stairwell.”

            Without a thought, he raised his wand and sent a hex at the intruder, blasting him off his feet and tumbling down the stairs and out through the tapestry.  Raine stiffened and watched the idiot fall in shock.  Then she shook her head and buried her face in his shoulder again.  He caught himself half-praying that she didn’t take this too hard, that he could heal her raw wounds and that she wouldn’t spend tonight in her dormitory cutting, hurting herself where he couldn’t stop her.  _Please don’t let her be hurting.  Please don’t let her hurt herself.  I can’t bear it._

            He was falling so hard for her and there was nothing to catch himself on.  He was willing to take risks he’d never imagined taking…standing up to Avery, hexing random students, putting his own mind at risk worrying.  Anything to keep her safe and happy.

\------------------

            She did spend that evening cutting.  He knew when she was late to breakfast, knew when she slumped down next to him at the Ravenclaw table where he was avoiding Avery, knew when she curled herself silently into him.  He didn’t know how to heal her, but he dragged her to the same empty classroom where she’d healed him and demanded to know where she’d cut.

            Silent tears began to track over her lovely cheeks and she rolled up her left sleeve.  Blood seeped through a bandage winding around her arm in three spots, wounds carved across her arm, criss-crossing where he knew there were already scars.  For a moment, he stared at the blood seeping through the bandage and felt he might be sick.  He could feel his heart breaking inside his chest as he imagined her crying alone in her dormitory, carving not one, not two, but three new scars in her arm, the lowest one on her wrist as if she’d been half-hoping to die.  It ate him up inside.  “I’m taking you to Madam Pomfrey,” he finally choked out.

            Raine gripped his arm.  “No.  Please don’t…she’ll confine me to the hospital wing.  I’ll go mad in there.”

            He gave her a look that let her see how much it pained him to know what she’d done.  “At least you couldn’t hurt yourself there.”

            Raine shut her eyes and another tear leaked from one.  She took a shuddering breath in, then let it out.  “What if I heal myself?  Will you let it go then?”

            He took her hand in his and gently stroked her fingers one at a time, memorizing the creases on her knuckles, the veins on the top of her hand, the lines on her palm.  He’d never imagined such things mattering, but they did matter.  “I won’t let it go, but if you heal it, I’ll have nothing to show Madam Pomfrey.  I won’t take you there.”

            “Fine.”  She drew her wand, laid it against the bandage on the middle wound, and whispered the words over and over as she had for him.  “ _Vulnera Sanentur.  Vulnera Sanentur.  Vulnera Sanentur.”_   Slowly, the red of the blood began to fade and, at last, Raine stopped the incantation and unwound the bandage.  There was no blood, no raw wounds.  “Satisfied?”

            He carefully lifted her arm in his hands, inspected it, then kissed her skin where he remembered the three wounds to have been.  Raine stiffened, but let him.  When he was done, he lowered her arm and kissed her lips instead.  In between kisses, he whispered to her, “I’m so sorry, darling.  I’m so sorry.”

\-----------------

            On the thirty-first, Severus found himself in the strange situation of caring very much about what he was wearing.  He couldn’t remember ever caring about such things before and he had scoffed at his mother when she insisted on buying him a set of secondhand dress robes last year “just in case.”  Obviously, she was hoping he’d get invited to one of Lucius’s ludicrous pure-blood events.  When was he ever going to wear dress robes, he’d thought?  He hated “dress robe” events and avoided them at all costs.

            Well, now he was putting on his dress robes, his mind spinning with thoughts of Raine dressed up intermixed with Potter and Black and everyone else laughing at him.

            His robes were black, thank god, with Slytherin green trim, a black shirt, and a black tie.  Not bad at all by dress robe standards.  Mulciber was struggling to cut extra ribbons and whatnot off his green robes on the other side of the room, muttering to himself, “They were supposed to be Slytherin green, not vomit green…”

            Still, Severus’s robes were a little snug, obviously not tailor-made, and he felt ridiculous in them.  Also ridiculous was the amount of time he’d spent in the bathroom before he’d gotten to this point.  Before Raine, he’d never given a damn about his appearance.  Now that he was a dating a very beautiful girl who he very much wanted to please, it seemed to matter quite a bit more.  She’d never said anything to him, had never looked at him askance, but he felt plenty of self-imposed pressure.  He’d taken to showering every morning whether he felt it was necessary or not, shaving twice a week, everything he could think of.  It was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help caring.

            He wanted to hide in the dormitory forever and seriously contemplated taking off the dress robes and crawling into bed, but he couldn’t.  Raine had been anxious enough the last few days and he couldn’t keep her waiting.

            She’d spoken very little and he’d noticed her shaking every now and then.  She wasn’t eating much at all and obviously not sleeping judging by the look of her eyes.  They had spent little time snogging because she didn’t seem to be up for it, though he thought it might make her feel better.

            A part of him worried that she hadn’t wanted to snog because she didn’t want him to find any new scars.

            There was no putting it off any longer.  He took one last look in the mirror, steeled himself, and left the dormitory.

            As he mounted the stairs and came into the entrance hall, he found himself surrounded by music, the smell of food and sweets, and people in glittering dress robes.  It was disorienting and highly anxiety-inducing.  His skin was crawling along his arms and he wanted to turn tail and run back to the dungeons.  But he was not a coward, and he needed to see this through for Raine’s sake.

            He found a place in the entrance hall not far from several other males in similar situations where he could wait and watch for Raine to descend from Ravenclaw Tower.  Time seemed to creep by as he waited and he hoped that everything was alright.

            “Severus?”

            The voice snapped him out of his reverie and he blinked and turned to face Lily, who was standing there staring at him.  Her hair was curled and she was wearing a gorgeous blue gown.  A year ago, he would have fallen head over heels seeing her like that.  Not now.  Now he just felt cold.  “Lily,” he greeted her.

            She was looking him up and down, her eyes wide.  “You look…good.”

            The compliment sent him off-kilter, but he held it together reasonably well.  “Um…thanks.  You too.”  She nodded slowly but said nothing.  She was almost looking at him like…was she attracted to him?  That would be just his luck, for her to finally be attracted to him after he’d gotten over her.  It couldn’t be, though.  She was here with someone.

            “Snape.”  Potter swept in and took Lily possessively by the arm.  The movement only just broke Lily away from staring at him and Potter seemed to notice, shooting a mild glare at Severus.

            “Potter,” he said coolly.  “Have a nice evening, Lily.”

            “You too,” she choked out.  Then, she and Potter were gone and he was alone once more.

            It should have bothered him, Lily with Potter, and it did a little, but not as much as it should have.  A tiny piece of him did care, but he realized that it was the piece that was still angry with Potter and Black for attacking him and Raine.  He didn’t want his enemy to be happy and, apparently, it had little to do with his former best friend’s happiness.

            He turned and faced the staircase once more…only to stop stock-still.

            His happiness was coming down the stairs.

            Raine looked stunning in lavender dress robes with sheer black lace sleeves, a low neckline, and a slit up her left leg.  She walked expertly on high black heels and her black hair was in a tumble high up on her head, tiny tendrils falling down to her shoulders, but her neck otherwise bare.  She wore makeup that he couldn’t name but that made her grey eyes leap out and swallow him.

            His jaw must’ve been on the floor because for a moment she’d looked terribly nervous, but then she smiled and descended the final steps confidently.  She offered him her hand and he took it automatically, kissing her knuckles.  “You look…” he tripped over the words.  “Wow.  You look amazing.”

            “Thank you,” she said with a blush.  “You look amazing too.”

            His heart swelled and he smiled as he led her into the Great Hall.

            The feast was fantastic with festive dishes being passed around, jack-o-lanterns and candles hovering overhead, and beautiful, haunting music echoing through the hall.  When the pudding was finished and Severus felt fit to burst, Dumbledore stood, smiling genially about at everyone.  “A lovely feast!  And now, a dance!”  He gestured that everyone stand and, once they had, he snapped his fingers.  In that instant, the tables and benches disappeared and the lights dimmed to a mere golden glow from the candles and jack-o-lanterns.  The music increased in volume and a band revealed themselves in the corner of the hall, playing a motley of instruments Severus couldn’t name.  Everyone cried out in surprise, then cheered.  Raine took his hand and he smiled down at her.

            The old him wouldn’t have been caught dead dancing, but he was more than happy to dance with Raine.  Her body was warm and soft, her muscles moving gracefully under his hands.  She was an expert dancer and perhaps the only reason he didn’t make a complete arse of himself tripping around the hall.  At one point between songs, he asked her, “Where did you learn to dance?”

            “It was the only thing my mother and I did together when I was little,” she said quietly.  “She took me to dance lessons and practiced with me at home.”

            “Well, it paid off.”

            She chuckled and he reveled in hearing her laughter for the first time in days.  It felt like birds singing after a long, stormy night.  “Thank you.”

            He felt eyes on them the whole evening, but he ignored them fervently, even when they met his gaze.  Avery, Lily, Potter, Black, none of them mattered tonight.  Not when the dim light was glinting in Raine’s eyes and she was smiling up at him, leading him in a slow waltz. 

            When he at last picked up the rhythm, Raine grinned and stepped closer, laying her head on his shoulder.  He held her tighter, loving the feel of her silk and lace gown under his hands, loving the smell of her hair in his face, loving the pressure of her curves against his chest.  He loved everything about this moment, everything about her.

            Was that right?

            It was.

            He loved everything about her.

            He loved her.


End file.
